Undercover marketing seeks to influence buying decisions without tipping off the consumer about the manipulation. Also labeled buzz, guerrilla marketing or stealth marketing, these tactics take four distinct forms: Ad spies and leaners are actors hired to get people buying or discussing featured products. Advertising agencies also get messages across through product placement or video releases, which mimic conventional broadcast reports. These trends worry critics, who describe undercover marketing as manipulative and deceptive.

Ad Spies

Paying actors to surreptitiously pitch products is a favorite tactic of undercover marketers, Commercial Watch Executive Director Gary Ruskin wrote to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in October 2005. Ad spies are often hired to talk up local products to help spread a client's market share. In his letter, Ruskin cited a major food company that sought to develop a new healthy snack. The company's pilot program featured ad spies hanging around clinics as they sampled the new product. The goal is a campaign that does not resemble a traditional marketing effort.

Leaners

"Leaners," as they are nicknamed, represent a ramped up variation on the ad spy approach, Ruskin states. Companies using this method send their products with actors to trendy establishments, where they strike up conversations with total strangers. However, the conversations follow a scripted format designed to get customers to interact with the product in some way. One technique involves having an actor's phone ring at the bar, followed by the caller's picture popping up onscreen. Critics call the practice deceptive, since the actors never identify themselves, nor reveal their true purpose.

Product Placements

Prominently displaying products is standard practice in film and TV production. Undercover marketers are also exploiting this method of product placement to their advantage, as "Metro" reported in May 2004. Beer.com followed this logic in placing 50,000 bottle caps bearing its name in bars during Mardi Gras and spring break celebrations. In another scenario, a Massachusetts firm sent fake riders onto local subways with newspapers that contained equally phony back page ads for its products. By doing so, the company hoped to convince people that it was well-established and successful.

Video News Releases

For critics, video news releases represent a significant blurring of boundaries between journalism and marketing -- since the publicists who appear in them are passed off as traditional broadcast reporters, according to a summary posted by PR Watch. However, although styled like news reports, VNRs focus on selling a product. Local TV stations often respond by inserting their own graphics, or hiring a staff reporter to re-dub the script in their voice. This approach further disguises a station's relationship with its client, while making the finished product sound like one of its own reports.

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